Steak! Who doesn't love a wonderful big slab of flesh, grilling away over a bed of red-hot coals? But the price of beef has gone through the roof over the past 5-10 years to the point that one may as well spring for crab legs or lobster as a Rib Eye...even at home.
Ahh, but my good friend and long time partner in foolishness, maple syruping and talking out of our arses Colonel Roy comes to the rescue with a method (along with a couple tricks of my own) to make even the cheapest cuts of beef turn out tender and delicious!!!
You'll need:
1 Cheap Beef Roast. Chuck, Round, English, whatever is on sale, find a thick one that, if cut in half through the middle lengthwise, would make two nice steaks. Pay attention to marbling, it should have nice marbling and the fat shouldn't be too thick. Boneless preferred.1/2 pot or so of stale coffee
1/2 c. Olive Oil
Large ziplock bag
Cut the roast in half through the middle the long way to make two steaks. Use a very sharp knife and be careful. Put the steaks in the ziplock bag, pour the olive oil in and fill the rest up with coffee. Shake around a little to mix well. Set aside for at least two hours. More is better, I like to do this in the morning for grilling in the evening. If you're going to do it all day, put in fridge. If you're just going to do it for 2-3 hours, don't put in fridge.
About 1/2 hour before grilling, lightly season both sides with garlic salt and pepper and a dollup of olive oil about the size of a U.S. quarter poured on to each side of the steak and rubbed in.
Grill over hot coals. I like to use maple coals, but good old charcoal works also. It will be about as close to the tenderness and taste of a good rib-eye as you can get for a quarter of the price.
Here's another 'Cheap Steak' trick. Absolutely cover both sides of a steak in coarse ground sea salt. Let sit at room temperature for a couple hours. Rinse the steak in the sink well. Grill as usual.
ReplyDeleteThe steak will not only be seasoned (most of the salt washes away in the rinse) but the salt tenderizes the steak. Great for cheap cuts like chuck steaks, round, etc. I would never do this to a NY Strip, Ribeye, T-Bone or Porterhouse, though. That would be blasphemy.